Old paper wallets: how to tell if they still work

The two halves of the sheet

• The address: the code and text usually under the word «address» or «deposit». It is public. You can type it into a block explorer and see what it holds. It cannot spend anything.
• The private key: the other code, almost always under «private key», «secret» or «spend». That is the money. Anyone who reads it can empty it in a minute and leave no useful trace.

How to check whether it holds anything, safely

1. Copy the address (the public part) from the sheet by hand.
2. Type it into a well-known block explorer, typing the explorer’s address into the browser yourself.
3. Look at the balance and the date of the last movement. If there is a balance and nothing has moved since, your paper is still good.
4. If the balance is zero and there is an old outgoing movement, it was already spent back then. There is nothing to recover, and that is a useful answer too.

When the private half is protected

Some paper wallets from that era were printed encrypted: the private key carries a password and usually starts with the characters «6P». If that is your case and you don’t remember the password, you have an ordinary recovery case with a very good outlook if you remember anything, because those passwords were typed by hand. It is explained in private keys starting with 6P.

If the paper is damaged

Thermal paper fades, ink discolours and damp eats characters. If some characters of the private key are missing, not all is lost: those codes carry an internal check that lets most wrong reconstructions be discarded. With two or three illegible characters it usually works out; with many more, it doesn’t.

Keep reading

• Private keys starting with 6P: what they are
• Keys starting with 5, K or L: what each format means
• How to check if your funds are still there without risking anything
• What an address is and why it isn’t a secret